O2 to recruit NFC team and 250 store ‘Gurus’

O2 is launching a recruitment drive that will see it add 14 members to its near field technology (NFC) team, Mobile can reveal.

The new team will sit under O2 Money chief James Le Broc, O2 new business development director Tim Sefton told Mobile. Meanwhile, Claire Maslen will continue to head up NFC.

The company said it is looking for product managers, operations managers and financial services professionals to boost its NFC capability.

Sefton predicts that NFC, which enables consumers to make payments with their mobile devices, will take off in mid-2011.

O2 is planning to launch both prepay and postpaid debit and credit cards, following on from its ‘Load and Go’ prepaid cards that launched under the O2 Money banner in 2009.

The company is poised to announce a new financial partner after parting ways with NatWest bank last year.

The operator is also recruiting 250 more ‘Gurus’ to add to the 150-strong team in its stores after a restructure announced in December.

Sefton said: ‘Our point of difference has been the customer experience.

Customers are walking out the shop with £500 worth of computing kit, so we have O2 Gurus for that.

‘We are going to make sure we have a Guru in pretty much every store in the country. People talk about the difference being in the software, but our people are our software.’

O2 is looking at leveraging its Money and Media arms next year, said Sefton, adding: ‘Media and Money are part of an overall plan. It gives us the opportunity to think about the businesses as not just a one-sided model.’

In December, the operator revealed a major restructure of its business and consumer divisions as it reaffirmed its status as a services company beyond just mobile.

Sales and marketing have been brought together on O2’s business side in a move that sees business sales director Ben Dowd take SME marketing responsibility from marketing director Sally Cowdry.

On the consumer side, sales and customer service have been joined under a yet to be appointed director of sales and services.

A limited number of redundancies will occur with a three-month consultation period kicking off this month.